PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa will on Thursday pronounce its verdict in the plea filed by the Congress party seeking the disqualification of the ten Congress MLAs who switched from the Congress to the BJP back in 2019, claiming that since they constituted two-thirds of the strength of the party in the house, they didn’t incur the wrath of the anti-defection law.
After the Speaker rejected the plea for disqualification of the 10 MLAs, the Congress approached the High Court.
The Congress has vociferously argued that the 10 MLAs should be disqualified since there was no merger of the parent political party and further that the 10th Schedule requires that if the parent political party is merging, then the consent of at least two-thirds majority.
“For a valid merger under the Tenth schedule, a twin test is required to be satisfied i.e. firstly there must be a decision of the original political party to be merged and secondly 2/3rd of legislative members should agree to such merger. A legislative party by itself cannot merge the political party. There is no concept of the merger of a legislature party in the Tenth schedule of the Constitution,” Adv Vivek Tankha, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP argued.
“The interpretation given by the speaker defeats the very purpose of the Tenth schedule which was enacted in the year 1985 and thereafter strengthened by an amendment in the year 2003,” he added.
The petition was heard alongsidew a similar petition filed by the Mahrashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) who lost two MLAs to the BJP after they ditched the party they were elected on and ‘merged’ with the BJP.
Interestingly, one of the two MGP MLAs Deepak Pauskar who was made PWD Minister was denied a ticket by the BJP for the polls, while the other was asked to compete against Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat removing him from his favoured constituency of Pernem in North Goa.
Among the ten who shifted from the Congress three were denied tickets while seven were retained.
The verdict of the High Court could cause ripples across the country given that the issues raised could set a precedent amid cases of defection being reported in several cases across the country more recently in Meghalaya when a group of Congress legislators who comprised more than two-thirds shifted allegiances to the Trinamool Congress making it the principal opposition party without even contesting the elections.
